Descripciones:
...There was a snowstorm on the evening
on which I was born. The date was 1918. The place was Hanover, New Hampshire
where my father taught philosophy at what was then a small college. I grew
up in the hills where the Connecticut River dominated the valley, and the
ocean seemed an enormous distance away. Our house was at the top of a hill,
and a garden extended from the back door to the banks of the river. We had
a gardener who came twice a week to take care of it. It wasn't unusual in
that time and place.
The smell of wood burning is the first thing that I remember and apple cider
warming on the wood burning stove. My older brother putting on layers to
go sledding on the hill behind my house. The puddles on the floor which his
boots made when he returned. My mother sitting on the windowseat sketching
snow covered trees...
...I went to the window and looked out, but
instead of a meadow with a few lingering patches of snow, I saw ocean --
as if I was standing on a cliff overlooking San Francisco Bay. Beneath me
the waves turned into white surf, broke up where boulders emerged from the
ocean's floor, regrouped, moved slowly back out to sea. It was 1948, almost
exactly five years since the day I got the telegram that said that Luke was
dead....